Ways of Reading Third Edition - Martin Montgomery, Alan Durant, Nigel Fabb, Tom Furniss, Sara Mills 2007

Ways of Reading Third Edition - Martin Montgomery, Alan Durant, Nigel Fabb, Tom Furniss, Sara Mills 2007

Notes on contributors

Preface to third edition

Acknowledgements

Introduction

Section 1 Basic techniques and problem-solving

Unit 1 Asking questions as a way into reading

1.1 Comprehension and interpretive variation

1.2 Types of meaning

1.3 How to get started in ways of reading

1.4 Starting your reading with questions

Activity 1.1

Unit 2 Using information sources

2.1 Information and reading

2.2 Examples of the use of information sources

2.3 Adapting an information source to your needs: the OED

2.4 Digital texts

2.5 The Internet as a source of information

2.6 The reliability of information sources

2.7 Avoiding plagiarism

Activity 2.1

Unit 3 Analysing units of structure

3.1 ’Form’ and ‘structure’

3.2 Grammars of language

3.3 Literary applications of grammatical description

3.4 Extending the notion of grammar

3.5 Constitutive rather than regulatory rules

3.6 Possibilities for analysis

Activity 3.1

Unit 4 Recognizing genre

4.1 Sorting texts into types

4.2 Recognizing or deciding what genre a text is in

4.3 Functions of genre

4.4 Exploited genres

Activity 4.1

Section 2 Language variation

Unit 5 Language and time

5.1 Theories of language change

5.2 Change and linguistic media

5.3 Some types of language change

5.4 Archaism

5.5 Feminist changes to language

Activity 5.1

Unit 6 Language and place

6.1 Describing places

6.2 How characters (and the narrator) speak

6.3 Language variation

6.4 Varieties of English

6.5 Language variety in literary texts

6.6 Post-colonial writing in English

6.7 Dialect and accent in media

Activity 6.1

Unit 7 Language and context: register

7.1 Contexts that affect register

7.2 The social distribution of registers

7.3 Literature and register

Activity 7.1

Unit 8 Language and gender

8.1 Male as the norm

8.2 Female as downgraded or derogated

8.3 The potential for reform

8.4 Women’s speech

8.5 The female sentence: a woman’s writing?

Activity 8.1

Unit 9 Language and society

9.1 Vocabulary in social history

9.2 Language and social relations

9.3 Transitivity, and the notions of overt and covert agency

9.4 Language and social structure in the novel

Activity 9.1

Section 3 Attributing meaning

Unit 10 Metaphor and figurative language

10.1 Types of figurative language: metaphor, simile, metonymy, synecdoche, allegory, apostrophe

10.2 Analysing metaphors

10.3 Reading metaphor in literature

Activity 10.1

Unit 11 Irony

11.1 Verbal irony

11.2 Situational irony

11.3 Mechanisms of irony

11.4 Uncertain ironies

11.5 Why use irony?

Activity 11.1

Unit 12 Juxtaposition

12.1 Verbal (and poetic) juxtaposition

12.2 Visual juxtaposition: film

12.3 Sequential versus simultaneous juxtaposition

12.4 Some effects of juxtaposition

Activity 12.1

Unit 13 Intertextuality and allusion

13.1 Allusion

13.2 Intertextuality

Activity 13.1

Unit 14 Authorship and intention

14.1 The author

14.2 Intention

14.3 Ways of reading authorship

Activity 14.1

Unit 15 Positioning the reader or spectator

15.1 The implied reader

15.2 Direct address

15.3 Indirect address

15.4 Dominant readings

15.5 Gender and positioning

15.6 The resisting reader

Activity 15.1

Section 4 Poetic form

Unit 16 Rhyme and sound patterning

16.1 The structure of the syllable

16.2 Types of sound pattern: types of rhyme and types of alliteration

16.3 The significance of sound patterns

16.4 Making interpretations on the basis of sound patterns

Activity 16.1

Unit 17 Verse, metre and rhythm

17.1 Syllables and stress

17.2 Iambic feet

17.3 Other kinds of foot

17.4 Rhythm, metre and ‘foot substitution

17.5 Extra (and missing) syllables in the line

17.6 Free verse

17.7 What to look for in verse

Activity 17.1

Unit 18 Parallelism

18.1 Kinds of parallelism

18.2 Analysing parallelism

18.3 The functions of parallelism and the variety of texts in which it is found

Unit 19 Deviation

19.1 Convention and deviation in everyday language

19.2 Convention and deviation in literature

19.3 Effects and implications of literary deviation: defamiliarization

Activity 19.1

Section 5 Narrative

Unit 20 Narrative

20.1 Narrative form and narrative content

20.2 The typicality of characters and events

20.3 The narrative arc: from lack to resolution

20.4 How narratives begin and end

Activity 20.1

Unit 21 Narrative point of view

21.1 ’Story’ and ‘narration’

21.2 Point of view and narration

Activity 21.1

Unit 22 Speech and narration

22.1 Speech and writing

22.2 Types of speech presentation in prose fiction

Activity 22.1

Unit 23 Narrative realism

23.1 The traditional view of realism

23.2 The structuralist view

23.3 Marxism and realism

23.4 Non-realist texts

Activity 23.1

Section 6 Media: from text to performance

Unit 24 Film and prose fiction

24.1 Institutional differences: literature versus cinema

24.2 Differences in media: film versus prose

24.3 Formal differences: verbal sign versus visual image

24.4 Narration

24.5 Differences between film and prose fiction

Activity 24.1

Unit 25 Ways of reading drama

25.1 The page and the stage

25.2 Reading dramatic texts

25.3 The formal analysis of drama

25.4 Narrative in dramatic texts

25.5 The representation of thoughts or inner speech in drama

25.6 Dramatic devices that are written into the dramatic text but only work on the stage

Activity 25.1

Unit 26 Literature in performance

26.1 Medium and performance

26.2 How does performance affect reading literature?

26.3 The influence of medium

26.4 Reading between the myths

Activity 26.1

Appendix: notes on activities

Glossary

References